Tag Archives: birthdays

Happy Birthday for a Friend

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Friend-Happy-Birthday-IMG_0980

I love creating birthday cards for family and friends. I chose to make this card using some bright floral-patterned paper. It was something to help me get out of the winter doldrums and believe me, this Midwest winter has been far too harsh and LONG. I can hardly wait until Spring comes! This card will have to do for now.

This card design was inspired by one of my favorite card makers, Jennifer McGuire and her YouTube video titled “Rethinking Dies and Stamps”. This video is great and served as a reminder of how I can use my stamps and dies in conjunction to create some fresh designs. Jennifer made 22 amazing cards to prove her point. The card I made is just a small example of some of the ideas I learned from the video. If fact, I “cheated” a bit by using a piece of patterned paper for the background against my giant sentiment die. The die I used is big and cuts out the word ‘friend’, but leaves it attached to the top and bottom of the card piece you use. Thanks Concord & 9th for such a great die!

 

Hope you like this project. Have a great day!

 

How I made this project:

  • Take an A2-sized (4.25” by 5.5”) piece of cardstock. Use a color that will coordinate or accent the pattern that you will be using for the background. In this case, there were dark blue flower and leaf accents in my patterned piece, so I chose a dark piece of cardstock to make the patterned paper “pop” against the dark, but still pull together the entire card front. Note: I apologize if the cardstock here looks black. The photograph made the dark indigo color show up as black.
  • Die cut the cardstock using the die.
  • Adhere the patterned cardstock behind the die-cut card front. Note: the pattern can be from a piece of patterned paper or a pattern that you’ve stamped yourself. Also, the pattern doesn’t have to be a full A2-sized piece, but it must be big enough to completely cover the opening of the die cut card front.
  • For the sentiment: Chose a sentiment suitable for the occasion you want to express. In my case, I wanted to say happy birthday to my friend. I stamped my sentiment in embossing ink and then heat embossed it with gold embossing powder.
  • Embellishments: The card looked plain, so I used small flower punches to punch out flowers and adhere them to the card front. The flowers happened to coordinate with the complement the flowers in the patterned paper. I also added little dots in gold ink to the centers of the punched flowers to repeat the theme of dots in the flower centers of the patterned paper. This helped to tie everything together.
  • Adhere the completed card front to an A2 card base.

 

Supplies used in making this project:

  • Stamps:
    • WPlus9: And Many More (‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ sentiment).
  • Dies:
    • Concord and 9th: Peek-Through Pattern Dies (‘friend’ die used here).
  • Punches:
    • Small flora punches from my stash.
  • Cardstock:
    • Papertrey Ink: Dark Indigo (for die-cut card front piece), Hibiscus Burst (for small punched flower).
    • Patterned paper by Pebbles: Girl Squad collection (pattern behind the die-cut card front).
    • Neenah Solar White 110#: for card base and the white punched flowers.
  • Other:
    • Pilot Gold Marker (Extra Fine Point).
    • Brutus Monroe Metallic Embossing Powder in Gilded.

Ellen Hutson/Altenew Pin-Sights Challenge: Have a Fabulous Birthday

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Have-a-Fabulous-Birthday

Ellen Hutson’s October Mix It Up Challenge incorporates products from Essentials by Ellen and Altenew.

I decided to use the Floral Shadow stamp set from Altenew. It features large, solid floral and foliage images.  I chose two ot the floral and leaf images as my focal point and stamped them in a bold, deep raspberry ink. I used my MISTI stamping tool when I inked and stamped them a couple of times. I wanted to insure that I had good, solid impressions.

The color of the flowers is rich and bold, so I decide not to add other colors or things that might detract from the design. I wanted the flowers to really pop against the front of the card, so I emphasized this by matting the card front against black cardstock.

I love the sophisticated look of the handwritten “fabulous” sentiment die. I die-cut the word three times from the same black cardstock and glued all three pieces on top of each other for more dimension before adding it to card. I also added 2 small label sentiments, stamped in black, to complete my sentiment.

A few clear, sparkling sequins were added for a slight bit of shimmer and I “colored” the flowers using a clear, Wink of Stella glitter brush pen to up the glitz a little more.

I’m really happy with the results, my project is bold and striking and uses a minimum amount of color and fuss.

Hope you like this project. Have a great day!

Stamps:

  • Altenew: Floral Shadow Stamp
  • The Ton: Basic Labels (sentiment)

Dies:

  • Essentials by Ellen Designer Dies: Totally Fabulous

Inks:

  • Hero Arts: Raspberry Jam Mid-Tone Shadow Ink
  • Tsukineko: Versafine Ink: Onyx Black

Cardstock:

  • Neenah Solar White 80# cardstock (card front)
  • Bazzill: Licorice Twist (black) cardstock (mat)
  • Neenah Solar White 110# cardstock (card base)

Other:

  • Wink of Stella Glitter Brush in Clear.
  • Pretty Pink Posh Sparkling Clear Sequins (assortment).

Hello Spring: SSS Flickr Challenge #42

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Hello-Spring

The theme for the forty-second Simon Says Challenge is things that remind us of spring.

Bright colored flowers always remind me of spring. Spring colors are always so fresh and vivid which is such a contrast from the gray days of winter. I used bright colors for my flowers and bright green for the stems. I imitated the bright flower beds I see planted in the spring.

I added butterflies that were punched out of bright pink cardstock using an old Martha Stewart’s punch.

This card is fairly simple no special stamping techniques and I didn’t add any special background because I just wanted all the flowers and butterflies to pop.

Hope you like the card.

Supplies used in making this project:

Stamps: Simon Says Stamp: Birthday Flowers stamp set.

Dies: Simon Says Stamp: Painted Hello.; Martha Stewart butterflies punch (obsolete).

Inks: Papertrey Ink:  Raspberry Fizz, Hibiscus Burst, Melon Berry, Summer Sunrise, Bright Buttercup, and New Leaf.

Cardstock:  Neenah Solar White 80# for the card front; Neenah Solar White 110# for the card base; Papertrey Ink: Raspberry Fizz for the punched butterflies, New Leaf for matting the card front.

 

 

 

Have a Beautiful Day: Ellen Hutson Mix-It-Up-Challenge

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The September, 2015 Ellen Hutson Mix It Up Challenge requires combining any Essentials by Ellen and Impression Obsession products.  Impression Obsession makes some great red rubber cling background stamps and I have collected a few. The line of Essentials by Ellen clear stamps has a number of beautiful floral images. All the images are quite versatile and can be used in a number of ways.

For this challenge I decide to use florals in my card composition. So, I combined Impression Obsession’s Doodle Flowers 6”x6” background stamp with floral images from Ellen’s Bohemian Garden. I think the images from both brands really coordinate well and I am quite pleased with the results. I hope you like the final creation as well.

I first stamped the cling background piece onto an A2-sized piece white cardstock using a pinky-coral ink. I cut the stamped A2 piece in half along the diagonal. I then took a piece of A2-sized blush-pink cardstock and randomly stamped several of the Bohemian Garden images on it using the same pinky-coral ink used on the white cardstock piece. Note: I drew a diagonal pencil mark from corner to corner on the blush-pink cardstock as a guide to mark off the area I was going to create my background. I didn’t stamp the entire area of the blush-pink cardstock, only the area that would show.

I then adhered the white piece of stamped cardstock onto the bottom half of the stamped blush-pink cardstock. This served as the front of my card. I die-cut a narrow frame from gold metallic cardstock from my stash.  I used two dies from Papertrey Ink’s Mat Stack #1 dies to make the frame. Then using the larger of the two dies, I cut a vellum piece, and heat embossed the sentiment (also from Bohemian Garden) using gold embossing powder onto it. The sentiment piece was adhered to the back of the gold frame and gold sequins were added to finish the look. I adhered the entire frame to the front of the card and the card front was mounted onto a top-folding landscape-oriented card base.

Have a great day!

Supplies used in making this card:

Stamps:  Essentials by Ellen: Bohemian Garden stamp set; Impression Obsession: Cover-a-Card Doodle Flowers,

Inks: Papertrey Ink: Melon Berry; Versamark.

Cardstock: Neenah Solar White 80lb for card front; Papertrey Ink: Sweet Blush for card front; gold metallic paper from my stash; Bazzill 40# Vellum; Neenah Solar White 110# for card base.

Other:  WOW embossing powder in Gold Rich Pale; Pretty Pink Post gold metallic sequins (4mm and 6mm sizes).